Beautiful Shadow
by Mythian
Summary: There was nothing for her now, nothing but sadness and despair and broken dreams. Her world had divided and shattered, just like her heart. She had to set things right. The world needed a new Avatar, one who could truly be master of all four elements. It was time for her to step aside, to make way for her successor. It was the only way.


Disclaimer: _Avatar: The Last Airbender _and _The Legend of Korra _are property of Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko and Nickelodeon. As much as I would like to, I cannot and do not claim any sort of authorship, ownership, or "melon lordship" over the characters, plot, etc.

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Korra wandered, cold and alone, across the frigid, snow covered tundra. The South Pole had always been her home, but now her beloved arctic world seemed to have forgotten her. She felt the chill of the frozen air as it nipped her face, and for the first time in her life she was not comforted by its embrace. No longer could she feel the gentle pulse of the elements coursing deep within her spirit. The water, the most natural of all her elements, had turned its back on her. The earth was silent as she trudged onward through the drifts. Her inner flame, once so vibrant and determined, had fizzled. The air, well it had never really been there to begin with, yet it was all she had left now. And so she clung desperately to the element, feeble as the connection was, but her hold on it, too, seemed as fleeting as the rest.

She walked to the very edge of her world, steep cliffs of sheer ice marking the stark transition between land and sea. Unable to go any further, Korra stood at cliff's edge. A solitary tear fell and plummeted downward toward where the sea crashed violently against the shoreline.

"_I love you, Korra."_

Mako's heartfelt words returned to haunt her then, as she recalled the gentle caress of his gloved hand upon her cheek, the fire that burned within his amber gaze. She felt her heart clench at the now dying hope and elation those words would have once brought. Republic City lay in ruins, and it was her fault. She was supposed to be the world's protector. And she had failed. She had utterly and completely failed in her duties as Avatar, and in that failure all hope had vanished as quickly as her elements.

There was nothing for her now, nothing but sadness and despair and broken dreams. Her world had divided and shattered, just like her heart.

She had to set things right. The world needed a new Avatar, one who could truly be master of all four elements. It was time for her to step aside, to make way for her successor. It was the only way.

Korra closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Mako," she whispered.

And then she was falling, swiftly toward the very earth she had once bent. In that fall she finally felt it, a true connection with the one element she had long struggled to forge. Air. It whipped past her face and whispered promises in her ear she knew it would never be able to keep. But the air brought her peace, a sense of calm acceptance for which she had long been searching. Korra breathed deeply of the ice and the cold and the salt of the sea. She felt that familiar fire again, the one that came with bending the elements. And she knew. Amon had stripped her of her gifts and ripped away the very core of her being, but he could not take from her the memory of having held those gifts, even if it was only for a short time. Those memories were hers and hers alone and would stay with her forever. And it was with this knowledge, and the knowledge that the ancient cycle of the Avatar would soon begin anew, that Korra turned to embrace the last moments of her destiny. She had finally found peace. And with that newfound peace she did not hear the sickening crack her bones made as her body crashed to the shore below. Nor did she feel the blood as it began pooling around her. Instead, there was simply the gentle hum of the waves and the smooth caress of the tide as her mother element, water, returned to claim its child.

There, at the base of the cliff face, lay Korra. Even in death she was beautiful. But in her death she became nothing more than a shadow of her former self. A beautiful, tragic shadow.

_End_.

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Author's Note: I'm not even sure where this story came from. Perhaps it was a combination of my own current dark period and my having watched too much _LoK_ since getting the blu-ray in the mail last week. I think many of us have probably read further into that scene (and there are multiple perspectives one can take) in "Endgame" where Korra stands at the edge of the cliff after having her bending stripped away. I'd been wanting to explore that implied suicide scene for quite some time but was never quite sure how to go about it. In the end, I suppose just waiting patiently for the story to come to me on its own paid off.

Thank you for reading.

I'm certainly open to both feedback and critique, but please be respectful in doing so.


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